Enraged and frustrated Melvin thrust the box at him and shouted, “It’s whisky!”
Gorman delicately pushed the box away. “You sure it ain’t shoes? What I mean, she’s mighty damp today. Could be your tongue done slip while you intend to say shoes.”
“There’s one bottle of bourbon in there! Do you want it, or don’t you?”
“Buddy,” the guard answered with immense regret, “don’t you know I can’t allow you to hustle no bottle through this gate? Now, you know that.”
“I bought it in Mobile.”
“So I figured. Naturally. No cadet don’t generally come rompin’ home carrying no empty shoebox.” He became plaintive, as though his intelligence had been insulted. “Mr. Isaacs, how long you been in this here Navy?”
“I don’t know exactly. Sixteen or seventeen months, I guess. Why?”
“Lordy! Lordy! Longer than me. Some folks learn slow. You got to pay attention to what’s going on, do you aim to succeed in this world. Now me, I keep me one eye hitched up yonder, and do I see a officer on the road I ain’t chewing on no duty when he stops by.” To emphasize the point Gorman pursed his lips and spat tobacco juice through the fence. Then he took the box away from Melvin, untied it, and examined the label on the bottle.
“You done bought the best. My pap, he always say to me, ‘Son, don’t drink yourself no cheap rotgut.’ No, sir. Likewise, he don’t drink only the best, my pap. He say to me, ‘Son, always recollect a gentleman don’t never drink hisself no rotgut and he don’t wallop no woman without she done asked for it.’ So, buddy, I’m obliged to confiscate this here fine bourbon whisky. Now you romp through most any time you please.”
“Aren’t you going to smash it? I thought that’s what you did when you confiscated a bottle.”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Gorman said, impassively chewing. And he added, “I’m real sorry.”
“Oh, you got your orders. I’m not blaming you. I suppose in a way it’s my own fault.”
“You run have you a talk with some buddies. This one you count up to experience, and next time around you and me won’t have us no fuss.”
Melvin walked through the gate.
“So long!” the guard called after him.
Melvin nodded and waved. He stopped to scrape some of the mud from his shoes, then, with his head bowed, wandered disconsolately along the road to the barracks.
Horne did not get back until evening. He strode into the room and hung up his overcoat without saying a word. He tore off his necktie and hurled it into the wastebasket, pulled off his shoes, and sat down grimly behind the desk.
“Hot movie?” asked Melvin, who had been lying on his bunk all afternoon.
Horne scratched at an ink spot on the desk. He seemed to be meditating. Finally he said, “Great.”
“I guess we won, huh?”
“Sure.”
“We always do.”
“Yuh. They had these SNJ’s painted up like Zeroes with meatballs on the fuselage and some Hawaiians pretending to be Jap pilots.”
“How do you know they were Hawaiians?”
Horne looked at him steadily. “I don’t know they were Hawaiians. I just took a guess. For all I know, they were Peruvians. It was a waste of time,” he went on. “It was miserable.”
“So what did you expect? Did you think it’d be authentic?”
“I thought there’d be some big juicy broads.”
“You mean there weren’t?” said Melvin, looking at him with surprise.
“Oh, they had this one stupid blonde that looked pretty tender,” he admitted, pulling off his socks and throwing them at the closet. He reached for a package of cigarettes and shook one out, but then, suddenly, half-rising from the chair as though someone had just called him, hurled the package at Melvin. They looked at each other soberly; Melvin rolled over and stared at the wall.
Horne remained at the desk, smoking and cleaning his fingernails with a pair of scissors. It was drizzling outside, the field had been secured for the night, every few seconds the red beacon flashed through the mist.
Horne kicked the desk and flung the scissors to the floor. “Well, by God!” he said furiously, “you did it!”
“Did what?”
“Oh, knock it off! Everybody on the base knows about that whisky.”
Melvin lifted his head, oddly moved by the tone of Horne’s voice, and gazed into the wicked little pink-rimmed blue eyes.
“You’ve joined the immortals,” Horne said. “I always knew you’d do it, but I never thought it would be this way. By next Saturday there won’t be a cadet, or a swab jockey, or an officer anywhere within a hundred miles who doesn’t know who Melvin Isaacs is. In a few days you’ll be better known than the skipper. Just think! When anybody talks about it I can say, ‘That’s my roommate!’” He rocked back in the chair and stared out the window into the rainswept night.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Melvin said.
“Funny? Who said it was funny? It’s too incredible to be funny. It takes real genius to do what you did. I never heard of such a thing in my whole life. Already people are asking me what you look like, and do you gibber and walk on your knuckles. They’ll be knocking at the door any minute to have a look at you. We should charge admission. What have you got in that shoebox?” he inquired rhetorically. “What have you got in that shoebox? And what does Isaacs say? He says he’s got a fifth of bourbon in there. I never heard of such a thing! You must have drunk it on the bus. Is that why you had to tell the truth?”
“I guess I should have let Roska take it in.”
“I guess!”
“Well, why are you so hot about it? It was just a bottle of whisky, that’s all.”
“You think that’s the reason? I’ll tell you something. I don’t know why, but I kind of like you. I don’t like to see you make a fool of yourself. That’s why. Besides,” he went on, because the admission had embarrassed him, “you’re the first cadet in the history of Barin Field to have his whisky confiscated, and that ruins our record. Up until today we had a perfect score. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were the first cadet in the whole history of Pensacola to throw away a fifth of good bourbon. Maybe in the whole history of naval aviation.”
“Really? Do you think so?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Horne answered firmly.
“Oh, I think you’re exaggerating,” Melvin said. He sat up, lighted a cigarette, and began blowing smoke rings.
“You do, do you? Wait till tomorrow.”
He was right. At breakfast Melvin noticed whispering and staring, and it was the same at the hangar while he was checking out a parachute. Even the WAVEs in the loft gazed at him curiously.
Cole thought it was hilarious. He was sorry he had stayed in Mobile; he wanted Melvin to re-enact the scene. But Captain Teitlebaum approached and they all came to attention.
While giving instructions the captain let it be known that a friend of his, an Army pilot, was visiting the station and wanted to observe a cadet flight. The Army officer would be riding in the back seat of his plane.
“Now, I am warning you people,” Teitlebaum remarked. “You be on the stick today. If you go up there and behave like nincompoops I’ll rack you. The entire crew. Now, when you come down that alley I want to know that stick is hard over and well forward. I don’t want to see a Hollywood peel-off. You break out of there crisp and low and at the proper interval. Another item: this man is accustomed to Army landings. I want you people to demonstrate Navy three-point landings. I want to see five three-point landings in five seconds. I don’t want that man to be able to see one inch of straightaway when you people come aboard. I don’t want him to see one SNJ on level wings from the time you break formation until you roll across that mat. One warning should be sufficient. Do I make myself clear? Isaacs, you are leading this flight. These men will depend on you. Another item . . .”
Teitlebaum spent fifteen minutes warning them; the substance of his talk was simply that
he wanted to be proud of his students.
Melvin, Horne, and McCampbell took off at the same instant, pulled up the wheels, and a few seconds later were banking away from the field, headed for the dive-bombing range; Melvin glanced down and noticed with a slight shock that his left wingtip could not be more than six inches from the concrete. The previous week a cadet from another flight had retracted the wheels too soon after take-off, the plane settled as the airflow was altered, and the propeller touched the mat. Melvin and Roska happened to see it as they were coming out of the gymnasium. It had looked like a pinwheel on the Fourth of July; the pilot was now in the hospital, and as soon as he recovered he would be on his way to Great Lakes as an apprentice seaman.
He glanced to the right. McCampbell and Horne were in perfect formation, tighter than he had ever seen them. He began to get excited, sensing that this was the day—a day he had not even anticipated, but now he understood that it was here and that he had been waiting for it. They had all been waiting for it to happen, waiting to become a unit instead of five individuals.
Confidently he steepened the turn and McCampbell and Horne rolled with him as though they were marbles in the bottom of a bowl, and they all three rolled out of it together and started climbing. He glanced back, aware that he knew instinctively where to find Cole and Roska, and they were there. They were coming up fast, beginning to slide toward their positions. There was no need to say anything. He looked ahead. There was nothing in the sky or on the watery horizon and for a few moments it seemed to him that they were somewhere in the Pacific, and that just beyond the horizon the enemy waited.
As the dive-bombing range came into view he picked up the microphone. “We’re going to take number six. I say again: number six. Keep it steep. And it looks like there’s approximately a ten-knot wind from the south, so be sure you compensate.”
Four wooden stakes formed a square in the shallow water just off the beach. In the center of the square was another stake.
He led the echelon half around the target, feeling for the wind, drew the goggles over his eyes, and started down, steadily increasing the angle of the dive until it was almost vertical. He had the curious conviction he always had in a steep dive that the tail of the airplane had actually passed over his head, over the zenith, and that he was slightly inverted. The needle of the airspeed indicator was turning faster. He trimmed the plane, steadied it, and began to sight the target. Because the morning was cool he had worn his shirt and necktie under the coveralls. All at once the tie came fluttering out, blew around his chin, and then began hitting him in the face. He leaned to one side but the tie followed him, beating him over the nose and mouth and on the goggles like an infuriated butterfly. He wondered if he had time to let go of the controls long enough to catch it and stuff it back inside the coveralls. He looked at the altimeter, and at the water. The target was drifting; he eased the plane around, glanced again at the altimeter. At fifteen hundred feet above the water he was supposed to let go of the throttle, reach into the bottom of the cockpit, and jerk the bomb release. The necktie was flickering all over his face and he was afraid he was going to sneeze. He shook his head violently, shouted at the tie and tried to catch it between his teeth, took another look at the instrument panel, and was alarmed to see that he was beyond the point where he should have released the bomb. Not that this in itself made too much difference because he did not expect to hit the target anyway—on previous runs he had never managed to drop a bomb even reasonably close—but he was now so far below the release point that he did not know if he was high enough to pull out of the dive. He grabbed the handle, dropped the bomb, and dragged the control stick backward as fast as he could. The blood drained from his head so that he was blind, but half-conscious, and as soon as he felt the pressure lessening and saw his brain lightening in color he knew he was past the base of the arc and that the plane was starting upward.
He did not bother to scan the target area when his vision returned. The bomb had probably struck half a mile outside the square and he was so ashamed and disappointed that he wanted to forget about it. The flight had begun with such speed and precision. Now, all because of a necktie, the Army officer was no doubt trying to stifle his laughter and Teitlebaum must be furious.
He climbed toward the formation and as he leveled off behind the last man in the echelon, who happened to be Roska, he was surprised to see Roska turn around, grin, and triumphantly shake his fist. Cole had also turned around and was nodding as though in encouragement. Melvin began to feel touched by their loyalty. Somewhat discouraged, but determined to score a hit, he pulled off his necktie and tucked it between his thigh and the safety belt where it could not possibly get loose; and as Roska dove out of formation, leaving him again at the head of the echelon, followed now by McCampbell and Horne—with Cole rising swiftly toward them—he looked down at the bombing range and saw that the peg in the center of the target had disappeared. Apparently it had been broken by the concussion from nearby explosions and had floated away. He felt enormously relieved by this, for it meant the other members of the flight had partly redeemed him, and he was more than ever grateful to them. He watched Roska dive on the vacant square and place a bomb within it, not far from where the center peg had been, and his own failure seemed less important. What mattered was that the target had been destroyed, though he himself had been spectacularly unsuccessful.
Since the remaining target ranges were occupied by other formations, he led the second run against the same square and as he climbed away from it, twisting around in the cockpit to look down, he saw a puff of smoke burst within the boundary. It qualified as a hit, and he was thankful he had not missed again. He watched where the other bombs fell: McCampbell was inside the square, as he always was; Horne was in, as he usually was; Cole’s bomb struck near a corner peg; and Roska’s was a few yards outside. Of the ten bombs they had dropped, there must have been six or seven hits, and that was good. It was better than they had ever done before.
He signaled them to form in column behind him and led them down the beach to practice strafing on the driftwood. The sand Kicked as the bullets stitched along, and sticks jumped like animals. He noticed an object riding in the waves a few hundred yards offshore, and turned carefully against it with his finger curled around the machine-gun trigger. It was a log, peeled and half-submerged and as fearfully pale as a body, and Melvin pulled up frantically swerving toward the shore.
On the radio Captain Teitlebaum called his number, ordered him to detach himself from the formation, and climb to an altitude of five thousand feet prepared for combat.
Obediently he went up to meet the captain. They passed each other once; then Teitlebaum’s plane with the Army officer in the rear seat flashed by again so rapidly it seemed distorted, bending and elongating like something under water. Melvin kicked the controls, knowing Teitlebaum had already gained; moments later the captain’s plane again flashed by, turning, having gained a little more, drawing into position to commence firing.
He tried everything he had learned, and flew desperately over the revolving sky, but there was no escape: each time he looked around he found the captain a little closer, and he understood for the first time how panic could overtake a man when death drew inexorably nearer. At last, trembling so that he could hardly manipulate the controls, defeated and drenched with perspiration, with the captain flying directly behind him, he dipped the wings in surrender.
Teitlebaum ordered him to rejoin the formation and return to the field.
Melvin lifted the goggles and let them rest on his forehead. He wiped his face, noticing that his hand was shaking badly, and spiraled down to lead the column home.
As they cruised over the pine forests, the country roads and the lakes and swamps, and at last came to the base and entered the traffic circle, he thought about the captain’s victory because there had been something odd about it—it had been so unnecessary. Captain Teitlebaum had shot down eight Japanese fighters in the Pacific. There was n
o necessity to prove his superiority over a Pensacola cadet. And it had been so much more than a simple tactical demonstration.
One after another they peeled off, swung around the field, settled onto the mat, and taxied in. It had been a good flight. It had been a strange flight, but he knew that with the exception of himself they had flown beautifully and all together.
Captain Teitlebaum was not lavish in his praise; he commented that it had not been a bad day, and with that he dismissed them, except for Melvin. When the two of them were alone the captain took a cigar from the pocket of his coveralls and said as he was unwrapping it, “Are you positive you’re in the right outfit?”
Melvin looked at the officer in confusion; Teitlebaum, rising on tiptoe, gave back that familiar bright and terrible stare.
“Here’s what I’m getting at, Isaacs,” the captain said. “The point is this,” he continued, and put a match to the cigar. “I should recommend that you be dropped from flight training. Your grades are average, and occasionally, such as today, your leadership is commendable.”
He hooked his thumbs in the drawstrings of the life jacket and narrowed his eyes, squinting across the hangar. For a while it seemed he had nothing more to say. At last he went on. “Your reactions are slow, but that is not the essential qualification for a military pilot. There is one characteristic of a military flyer, however, that you do lack. I don’t know why. I don’t know quite what is wrong with you. It isn’t lack of courage. When that man was killed I thought you would break. You didn’t. I liked that.”
“He was sick, Mr. Teitlebaum. He was going around with that WAVE who hung herself in the loft and after that happened he never did know what he was doing.”
“I am not ever interested in explanations. Free is dead. The Navy invested time and money in training him and that investment has been lost.” He paused, returning to some earlier thought. “Four of you people are going to make fine combat pilots. The scrawny one who never says a word—monkey face with those beady little eyes—McTavish? Or McGregor? That boy is the sharpest I have encountered in this program. He should survive. Next, that tough towhead with the barrel chest and the broken nose—the one with the rasping voice. What’s his name?”
The Patriot Page 17